Monday, December 5, 2011

Cover blurb: When Hurricane Naomi tears through a small Mississippi town, a daring rescue unites two heroes. Nurse Kathleen Hart is a single mom racked by guilt over her husband's death. Firefighter Gideon O'Brien—orphaned as a young boy—has lost too many people he cared for. To rise above the storm's devastation, Gideon helps Kathleen and her sons rebuild their home. As Christmas approaches, they discover that even the strongest of storms can't destroy a romance built on the foundation of faith.

1) How did this story come to you?
I used to live on Mississippi Gulf Coast and wanted to honor the people who rebuild after a disaster like a hurricane. They do an amazing job. They are heroes.

2) Tell us about the journey to getting this book published.
My publisher asked me to do a Love Inspired series, and this is what I came up with. His Holiday Family is the first in A Town Called Hope Series. The second one is in April, 2012 called A Love Rekindled and the third one is out in September, 2012 called A Mom’s Fresh Start.

3) Tell me three things about yourself that would surprise your readers.
1) I love to read and haven’t read a book in four months for pleasure.
2) I don’t want any present for Christmas.
3) I can’t think of a third thing that would surprise my readers--I’m an open book.

4) What are you working on now and what's next for you?
I’m working on my third in the Men of the Texas Rangers Series for Abingdon Press. These books are a romantic suspense (contemporary). This third book called Scorned Justice should be out in August 2013 and is about revenge. The first book in the series will be out in March 2012 and it is called Saving Hope, followed by the second one, Shattered Silence in August 2012.

5) Parting comments?
I love hearing from my readers. You can email me from my website. There is a contact form.

Cover blurb: An unthinkable danger. An unexpected choice.
Annabel, once the daughter of a wealthy merchant, is trapped in indentured servitude to Lord Ranulf, a recluse who is rumored to be both terrifying and beastly. Her circumstances are made even worse by the proximity of Lord Ranulf's bailiff---a revolting man who has made unwelcome advances on Annabel in the past. Believing that life in a nunnery is the best way to escape the escalation of the bailiff's vile behavior and to preserve the faith that sustains her, Annabel is surprised to discover a sense of security and joy in her encounters with Lord Ranulf. As Annabel struggles to confront her feelings, she is involved in a situation that could place Ranulf in grave danger. Ranulf's future, and possibly his heart, may rest in her hands, and Annabel must decide whether to follow the plans she has cherished or the calling God has placed on her heart.

1) How did this story come to you?
Beauty and the Beast has always been my favorite fairy tale, and when I decided to do another fairy tale retelling, I knew I wanted to do a Beauty and the Beast story. I knew I wanted to set it in England and for it have a little bit of a Gothic feel. Then the story just gradually evolved. I don’t really remember too much about the process. I wrote it about four years ago.

2) Tell us about the journey to getting this book published.
I was still trying to get The Healer’s Apprentice published when I entered The Merchant’s Daughter in its first contest, and it won first place and The Healer’s Apprentice took fourth. But I didn’t really try very hard to get it published. Once Zondervan decided to publish The Healer’s Apprentice, my agent submitted The Merchant’s Daughter to my editor. A few months later, she asked for some changes. I did the changes, and finally, about a year after we submitted it, they said yes.

3) Tell me three things about yourself that would surprise your readers.
1) My books are published as YA’s but I rarely read a YA.
2) I am watching the TV show Once Upon a Time, which is not surprising, but it is the first TV show I’ve followed in over twenty years.
3) I hate bananas.

4) What are you working on now and what's next for you?
I have a Snow White story and a Cinderella story that are both sequels to The Healer’s Apprentice and am hoping Zondervan will publish them in about a year. Right now I’m working on a Regency for an adult Christian audience.

5) Parting comments?
I should probably say something profound like “World peace is so important and we should all do our part,” but instead I’ll say, “Please go buy my book. It’s really good.”

Cover blurb: Caught with pot in her dorm room, Bailey Randolph is exiled to a relative's ancestral home in Virginia to straighten herself out. Banishment to Maple Hill is dismal, until a ghost appears requesting her help. Bailey is frightened but intrigued. Then her girlhood crush, Eric Burke, arrives and suddenly Maple Hill isn't so bad.

To Eric, wounded in Vietnam, his military career shattered, this homecoming feels no less like exile. But when he finds Bailey at Maple Hill, her fairy-like beauty gives him reason to hope--until she tells him about the ghost haunting the house. Then he wonders if her one experiment with pot has made her crazy.

As Bailey and Eric draw closer, he agrees to help her find a long-forgotten Christmas gift the ghost wants. But will the magic of Christmas be enough to make Eric believe--in Bailey and the ghost--before the Christmas bells ring?

1) How did this story come to you?
In a vivid dream that took place in the beautiful old Virginia home place where my father grew up and I visited during the holidays about a young woman, a guest in the house at Christmas, and the mysterious gentleman she met. That dream nagged at me until I wrote the story. I’m also very nostalgic about the late 1960’s, thus the time period the story is set in, and an even earlier era 1918 and the end of WW1--that accounts for the flashbacks.

2) Tell us about the journey to getting this book published.
Writing it. My Faery Rose (light paranormal) editor loved the story, so the journey was all in the creation.

3) Tell me three things about yourself that would surprise your readers.
I’m a wee bit psychic. Stories and characters often come to me in dreams, also events I’d rather not know about sometimes. I pray a lot.

4) What are you working on now and what's next for you?
The next story in my ‘Somewhere’ series, the sequel to Scottish time travel romance Somewhere My Lass, while I wait to hear back from my historical editor about a manuscript I turned in, the third in my colonial frontier trilogy and the sequel to Through the Fire. I write for two different lines at the Wild Rose Press.

5) Parting comments?
If you enjoy an intriguing mystery with Gothic overtones and heart-tugging romance set in vintage America then Somewhere the Bells Ring is for you. And did I mention the ghost?

Cover blurb: Adie O’Connell, orphaned and alone in a dangerous logging camp, seeks the stability she once knew when both her parents lived. Despite the compassion and friendship offered by Noah “Preacher Man” Mitchell, she refuses to consider marriage to a man always drifting from one job to another for God.

1) How did this story come to you?
I was visiting the Camp Five logging museum in Laona, Wisconsin and thought it would be a great place to set a story.

2) Tell us about the journey to getting this book published.
I wrote the first two chapters of the book several years ago, but wasn’t able to find a publisher for it. It sat lonely on my hard drive for that entire time. Then in August 2010, Barbour put out a call for a Christmas story with a log cabin in it. How perfect! I wrote the third chapter, polished everything, and submitted it.

3) Tell me three things about yourself that would surprise your readers.
Wow, this is hard for me. I’m pretty much a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of person.
1. I’m disorganized. O.K., very disorganized. I like to pretend I have it all together, but I don’t.
2. I haven’t read the other stories in the collection. I’m afraid they’re way better than mine.
3. I don’t like talking on the telephone.

4) What are you working on now and what's next for you?
My agent has submitted my WWII story to several publishers. Still waiting… I’m working on a prairie romance now and will soon embark on another series set in South Dakota.

5) Parting comments?
Thank you so much for hosting me. I appreciate it and I appreciate all the readers who have bought the book and sent me such kind comments.